Porsche always saves the most exciting versions of the 911 for the very end of each generation’s life. The 992’s successor is right around the corner but the Stuttgart boys have only just taken the covers off the 911 S/T. And it seems like Alpine might be adopting a similar strategy for its mid-engined A110 sports car.
The A110 went on sale in Europe in 2017 and is soon to be retired in favor of an all-new electric two-seater that was supposed to have been developed with Lotus until the Geely-owned company ducked out of the deal. But not content with giving us a hardcore A110 R last year, Alpine appears to be working on something even more extreme to keep interest in the Porsche Boxster rival high until the Dieppe factory makes its switch to volts.
Alpine, we should say, is saying nothing at this stage about the existence of an even more track-focused A110, but if a picture says 1,000 words then a spy shot says 10,000, and in this case, they’re ones like ‘lightweight’, ‘downforce’ and ‘lap times’.
What we’re calling, but which Porsche’s lawyers will probably prevent Alpine from calling, an A110 RS was spotted in prototype form outside the Nurburgring where it had presumably been testing out the usefulness of a series of visible aerodynamic additions. Those are a set of cannards on each corner of the front bumper, an extended splitter, revised frunk vents, and a small Le Mans-style dorsal fin on top of the engine cover.
Related: Alpine A110 R Prototype Spied With More Aggressive Aero
The rest of the aero package – the diffuser and end planes, side skirts, and the rear spoiler complete with swan-neck pylons – appears unchanged from what we saw on both the A110 R and the A110 R Fernando Alonso Edition. Remember that one? Bit of a PR disaster because it appeared after Alonso had announced he was leaving Alpine’s F1 team for Aston Martin’s, and it also looked pretty terrible value at around €148,000 ($161k), which is around 40 percent more than the R it’s based on.
So maybe what we’re looking at is a series production version of the Alonso, with even more downforce and hopefully a more sensible price. Or maybe Alpine couldn’t even find 32 mugs to buy the 32 Alonsos it built and has had to repackage them into something more palatable. We’re also hoping for a little more punch from the turbocharged 1.8-liter motor to make the most of all of that aero kit – the R and Alonso both make do with the same 296 hp (300 PS) turbo’d 1.8 as the mid-level A110 S.
